resilience and adaptability of socio-ecological systems to respond to short term variation in drivers, and

system transformability to reach new equilibria under drivers that change over longer periods of time.

The different food system components, their interactions and feedbacks, and the different time scales on which they operate give rise to complex systems in which interventions may have diverse and unexpected outcomes. Systemic learning and co-innovation have been advocated as key elements for analysis and decision making in complex (food) systems.The Postdoc will develop and implement a systemic learning approach on ecologically intensive production and value chains.

The main research question will be “How can stakeholders stimulate transformation towards sustainable vegetable food systems in Chile and Uruguay?”

The Postdoc will engage with actors in selected case studies and implement a reflexive interactive design process. Starting from a baseline assessment of a longlist of case studies (joint work with the PhD projects), the Postdoc will engage with selected case studies to jointly build and monitor a change trajectory of their food system. Methods may include workshops and interviews to build case study innovation histories; fuzzy cognitive mapping and scenario development; Agent Based Modelling or game development. The Postdoc will be involved in running the project together with the project coordinator and enhance the systemic capacity for food system innovation.